Covid-19 Immunization in Peru to Begin Tuesday as Country Faces Second Wave

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A first batch of 300,000 doses of vaccines from the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm will arrive in Peru this Sunday, February 7th, to begin immunization against the coronavirus when the country faces the second wave of the pandemic.

The cargo will arrive at Jorge Chávez del Callao airport at night on a flight from Beijing that made a stop at the Parisian Charles de Gaulle airport in France.

By land and air with helicopters and drones, more than 1,000 policemen will transfer the batch of vaccines to the warehouses of the National Center for the Supply of Strategic Health Resources (Cenares) in Callao, where they will enter for distribution.

The 300,000 doses that will arrive will be joined by another 700,000 from the Sinopharm laboratory that are scheduled to leave China on February 13th.

This first batch will immunize 150,000 people from health personnel “most exposed” by the high levels of contagion of covid-19.

“Today the vaccines arrive in Peru, we are ready to start the immunization plan giving priority to health personnel in the most critical regions,” said the interim president.

“Solidarity and responsibility will restore our trust and hope,” he added in a message on the social network Twitter.

First vaccinated

The Minister of Health, Pilar Mazzetti, reported that immunization will begin in Lima and El Callao (a neighboring port city to the capital) on Tuesday February 9th, while the vaccines transported to the interior of the country by the Armed Forces will be available from Wednesday, always following security protocols.

President Sagasti will be the first person to be vaccinated. “He wanted to be vaccinated in the end but that is not logical, he is the symbol, he has to be vaccinated first than us, and then all health personnel,” said Mazzetti.

The Peruvian government, criticized for its delay in the purchase of vaccines while neighboring countries such as Chile or Bolivia have already started immunization, announced this week that it will receive 20 million doses of the vaccine from the US group Pfizer, whose first batch of 250,000 units will arrive in March.

The government is also negotiating agreements with Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Sinovac laboratories, as the government advanced a few weeks ago. Peru also bought 14 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, due to arrive after September.

The Andean country hopes to obtain a total of 52 million doses to vaccinate 26 million people, since each one must receive two injections. The Peruvian population is 33 million.

Peru reported 1.1 million confirmed cases and 42,121 deaths from covid-19 as of Saturday, with 13,086 people hospitalized in a health system on the verge of collapse, with serious medical oxygen deficiencies.

The country is now in a targeted quarantine that includes Lima and nine other regions, due to a sharp increase in infections, deaths and hospitalizations.